Dear President Juncker.

Bonjewer John Clawed,
I thought it may be useful to your impending negotiations to offer you first dibs on a few "surplus to requirement returnable items" found here in good old blighty & all available at "fantastique" knock down prices.

Our first offering is:

Lead Free Solder

The british railway modelling fraternity has approximately 60,000 reels of absolutely useless lead free solder,,, that is "sans plomb" in your parlance. Believe me we have all tried,,, but to be frank it is to soldering what good old Nigel is to diplomacy,,, my personal stash is virtually brand new and really is looking for a submissive new home to reside in.

Our second offering is:
Millions of straight banana's,,,
I am sure it has proved very useful in enabling your many owners of banana boats "dans le cont-in-aunt" to cram a few more in to swell the Bruxelles [thats Brussels in our parlance] but once again despite several concerted efforts to accept these tasteless articles I am sad to inform they were solidly rejected by our all inclusive primate focus group based at Whipsnade Zoo.

Having carried out a full and detailed market survey I can also report that a butchers shop "somewhere in the south of England" has started trading again in lbs and ounces. & thats "up yours" in our parlance.

I also have a little investment tip for you,,, and that is tea towels,,, we are going to need lots of them now we can clean beer glasses properly again.

Please don't lose any sleep about dropping the English language from your kaleidoscope of foreign tongues,,,, to be brutally frank you never really got the hang of it anyway.

All the best old partner,,, oh and by the way,,, watch your back.

PS: We are doing a steamy little bash at Basildon this weekend so please drop in if you can find the time during your very busy schedule.

Happy as Pig's in Schee [you know what I mean]

Believe it or not this is how I feel at the moment ,, life couldn't be better,, never has my Boo been so tickety,,, at peace with the world.

Now there are few reasons for this upmarket state of mind,,, I have been so busy recently getting us settled into our new abode that even the Mehmsaab thought it would be a good idea if I chilled a bit and did something I wanted to do rather than,, painting,, laying carpet tiles,, kitchen tiles,, gardening [my favourite activity of never,,, what a complete and utter waste of time,,, you spend hours mowing the lawn and within a week you might as well have not bothered,,, get it under concrete that's what I say,,,, and then cover the concrete in sheds]

In fact something like this:

Yes The Pastures has a new home and after only 4 months we are "upem-n-attem" again on the modelling front,, the one on the left is "Crimpsall" where I either cut the end off my fingers, or solder them to workbench,, it's where "modelling" and serious tea drinking takes place,,, the one on the right "Gorton" is where the pastures now resides,,, if fact here it is in it's new home.

So not only do we have a new home but we really have run out of excuses not to plough through yet another Hit List in preparation for the next bash,,,, which is Big-Basildon in just a few weeks time. [there's the plug] I am sure I don't have to prove the point to all you avid readers but here's a couple of shots hot of the press proving that we are once again actively modelling, [please note tidiness is still an optional extra].

This is the interior of Crimpsall where I abuse/damage myself ,drink tea and stroke the cat,,

And here are the two ticks from today's hit list,,, the Bachmann K3 through a lump of valve gear off at Crawley and that is now repaired, cleaned and running fine,,, the chassis sitting in the foam nest is a Hornby  A1 pacific Great Northern which suffered a severe  case of "ADINUF" also at Crawley and now the improved pickup assembly has arrived that should soon be chuffing about nicely [a bit like the owner],,,, a quick point on current style chassis repairs,,,, what a pain,,,, bring back the XO4 and 8BA nuts,, life was so much simpler back then,,, you need a degree in 3 dimensional chess just to get the bodies off!!! Still all this front line fettling keeps me happy!!!

And talking of happiness,,, just feast your eyes on this little group,,, Oh Happy Days!!!!

Happy people apparently work better,,,,nothing to do with what they are working on I suppose!!

I look at photo's like this and the hairs go up on the back of my neck,,,, [ probably memories of Donny shed anywhere between 1961 and 1965]  & don't get me started again on why they demolished Crimpsall,,,, I suppose there is some consolation in that I've built a smaller version in my own back garden.

But what a wonderful photo of a happy bunch of workers,,, I wonder why!!!!

Cripes I've just re-read this post and it really is a pictorial extravaganza,,, I do hope it is of interest,, honest.